noniad: (Default)
Ortus Nigenad ([personal profile] noniad) wrote in [community profile] deercountry2022-04-13 04:55 pm

[semi-open] i am the world's poor pessimist | april catch-all

Who: Ortus Nigenad and YOU
What: April Catchall
When: April
Where: Various
Content Warnings: Discussion of death, Harrow the Ninth spoilers

butnotyet: (002)

[personal profile] butnotyet 2022-04-29 05:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Of.

[ So far as answers go, this one is ... not the most helpful. But wait, there's more! ]

Saint of Patience. And I see that you're definitely using quite a lot of it, in your... woodworking... endeavors.

[ A faint gesture, with the lit cigarette, toward the shed, possibly in benediction, possibly just meant to be indicative of the fact that it looks like a death trap waiting to fall over until it can feed on its hapless residents.

Oh, but it's also worse than that: the Saint is giving Ortus a very speculative look; dare we say, even, a bit of a head-to-toe examination? Maybe looking to see if this fellow follows in his mother's treasonous footsteps; maybe just looking to see how likely it is that he's going to take the Lord's Name in vain, getting a little spicy blasphemy into the mix, as it were. There's even a faint trace of 'hmm, just what would Harrow say' in the mix, although that at least is not really evident in his eyes or expression. ]


In what manner do you find yourself best suited to serve? Given that the answer does not appear to be carpentry.
butnotyet: (010)

cw: sketchily sexual allusions (possibly ongoing for the rest of this thread)

[personal profile] butnotyet 2022-05-03 08:27 pm (UTC)(link)
'Whatever capacity' anyone 'sees fit' is, of course, a dreadfully wide-ranging and nonspecific answer; one that could demand Ortus take to his knees, to fulfill all manner of servile and demeaning tasks — no small number of which would ensure that Ortus would get more than a taste of his own greasepaint shoved down his throat. Well, presumably not with Harrowhark, but then again — it isn't as if Augustine has ever had a reason to be interested in identifying the Ninth Saint's preferred sexual peccadilloes, in the not-quite-a-year he's known her.

"Lord love a man who's good with his mouth," he answers airily, making no secret of the way his gaze is locked on that abbreviated gesture, as if desperately hoping for another glimpse of unpainted (pink!) tongue. "As do I, for that matter." (Wait, what? Is he implying something about the Lord Undying, if he structures his sentences so?) "Tell me — do you prefer to be the one opening up and letting whatever words come to hand spill out of your mouth, when inspiration strikes — or would you rather be the one doing the inspiring?"

(Poor Ortus.)
butnotyet: (014)

[personal profile] butnotyet 2022-05-16 05:33 pm (UTC)(link)
"No?" The Saint of Patience sounds genuinely surprised, maybe even a little bit hurt at that.

(Perhaps the key word here is sounds — but then again, if there is literally nothing left that's genuine about someone, if everything he is is just one mask after another, isn't that another kind of truth, when you get right down to it?)

"I don't think you give yourself enough credit," he tells Ortus, gaze flickering lightly and lightning-quick, here to there, taking in some of his more... cuddly bits, robe-swaddled though they may be. "People throughout the universe have long held to a very wide standard of tastes; I don't see why you shouldn't be precisely what someone has been utterly longing for, for most of their life..."

A slower, more thoughtful drag on his cigarette, which — when withdrawn — is used to doodle a fairly Rubenesque series of curves in the air between them.

"Where inspiration wishes to strike, of course."
butnotyet: (010)

[personal profile] butnotyet 2022-05-22 03:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Alas, poor Ortus; here, he is subjected to chortling. It's a terrible laugh: terribly amused, terribly loud, terribly long, terribly performative — there's even a knee-slap, and the Saint of Patience does not even have the good grace to use the hand holding the cigarette, thereby setting his trousers on fire.

"Oh, bless you!" saith Patience, laughter switched off (to a smile) all at once after all too long. (Admittedly, five seconds may well have been too long, with that laugh.) "Shouldn't doubt it for a moment!"

(Warning: Unclear Antecedents! Shouldn't doubt his prior encouragements? Shouldn't doubt what Ortus himself just said? Both?! ... it's probably both.)

The smile switches off as well, as a more speculative gaze settles on volleying between Ortus and the Shed of Ortus, and — inevitably — another drag off the cig, although at least this time he isn't using it as a presentation aid.

"And what is your current plan in that regard, other than the chalk?"
butnotyet: (002)

[personal profile] butnotyet 2022-06-02 04:33 pm (UTC)(link)
"And here I was just desperately hoping you were going to start with something along the lines of 'find a nice comfortable way to plug those gaps,'" answers the Saint, with a sad sort of sigh, and a little bit of a cigarette-gesture (again, of course) that is maybe a little bit stabby and a little bit thrusty and really it would probably have been better for the sake of Ortus's mental health if the thrusting hadn't repeated three or four times.

"Some of those holes are quite glorious," he adds, tone shifting a bit more conciliatory, and when did he get quite close enough to clap Ortus on the shoulder in such a companionable way? How can Ortus get away again without causing offense?? His hand squeezes that doughy, monklike shoulder, quite firmly, although not quite painfully. (Maybe just a little bit too athletically for comfort.)

"The way I see it, you've got a few options," Patience continues, still gripping poor Ortus's shoulder, smoking with his other hand. "Now, spray foam is not sealant — I wouldn't recommend counting on that to do anything good for you, especially not internally — but even if you don't want to replace all the warped boards — which is arguably the highest-quality fix, although it's also going to be the most time-intensive — you should still be able to find some nice faggots for the largest gaps, and once you've got them jammed into those holes as hard and deep as you can, you can caulk them in place the rest of the way."

This last part, unlike all those earlier parts, said with the straightest and kindliest of faces, of course.
butnotyet: (015)

[personal profile] butnotyet 2022-07-08 05:27 pm (UTC)(link)
It is, maybe, disappointing, to the Emperor's First Saint, that this chunky-monk-ey of the Ninth House gives in so readily.

... Still, he's not going to let it stop him; the man clearly needs someone to encourage him to stand up for himself, shake out his vestments, learn to live a little under the skull paint, right?

(Isn't he the one with the terrible mother, after all? From what little Harrowhark said of the matter, he can't begin to think that she would have encouraged the boy to become a man, in the way of such things.)

"You as well, eh?" is offered conspiratorially, or almost affectionately — and then the Saint of Patience slings an arm around Ortus's shoulders, steering him back toward his (his!) shed, cigarette ashing itself into nothingness as it falls from his other hand (and never quite lands). "Let's see what you've got to commence repairs with, then! No time like the present!"